Annual Lecture 1994, Can Life be made? Can life be owned? by Vandana Shiva

Dr Vandana Shiva is one of the most acclaimed environmentalists in the country today. After her education abroad, Shiva returned to India, where she worked for the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management. In 1982 she founded RFSTN, later renamed the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), in her mother’s cowshed in Dehra Dun.

Shiva proceeded to work on grassroots campaigns to prevent clear-cut logging and the construction of large dams. She was perhaps best known, however, as a critic of Asia’s Green Revolution, an international effort that began in the 1960s to increase food production in less-developed countries through higher-yielding seed stocks and the increased use of pesticides and fertilizers. The Green Revolution, she maintained, had led to pollution, a loss of indigenous seed diversity and traditional agricultural knowledge, and the troubling dependence of poor farmers on costly chemicals. In response, RFSTE scientists established seed banks throughout India to preserve the country’s agricultural heritage while training farmers in sustainable agricultural practices.In 1991 Shiva launched Navdanya, meaning “Nine Seeds,” or “New Gift” in Hindi. The project, part of RFSTE, strove to combat the growing tendency toward monoculture promoted by large corporations.

In this lecture she speaks about the ethical and ecological issues emerging from genetic engineering and patents on life.